


The Voice of Devastation

by Squinton



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Battleship, Chaos, Filthy Heretics, Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40.000), Religious Fanaticism, Space Battles, big guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squinton/pseuds/Squinton
Summary: A new warship is built in the imperium. Dishonored by chance and bad luck, it is given one chance to prove itself.Ship Motto: To yield is to betray. To die is to dishonor. To serve Him is to fulfill your purpose.
Kudos: 1





	The Voice of Devastation

\--- the following is a transcript of an engagement between Imperial battleship Voice of Devastation and Traitor Cruiser Vengeful Intent, Traitor Cruiser Daemonkind, Traitor Cruiser Emperors Doom, Traitor Scoutship Harpy and Traitor Troop Carrier Charon. Encounter takes place in Ultima Segmentum, northern edge of the Cicatrix Maledictum. ---

The Voice of Devastation knew the names of the signatures reported from the augar arrays. Emperors Doom. Vengeful Intent. Daemonkind. Harpy. The names ran through the cogitator banks, eliciting pings from the towering memory bays as its previous encounter with the traitor ships - Emperors Doom. Vengeful Intent. Daemonkind. Harpy. - came to the forefront. They had tricked it, you see, lured it out of its lair, magazines empty, shields offline. It was the first of a new pattern of battleship, its new plating not even painted yet, constructed to crush the traitor Glorianas, to hunt the Vengeful Spirit and its sisters.

It resented the boiling marks left by their batteries, the shame on her name. The supposedly most advanced ship built by humanity in millenia, bought low by a group of cruisers. It remembers the Inquisitor that came, the new bridge crew hours after. The plating replaced, magazines filled, shields bought online, new crew “recruited” from among the surrounding planets population.

It ran over the signals, searching for authorization from the man on the bridge, waiting for him to make a decision when he already knew there was none. She and her crew had been deployed to hunt down the traitors who had shamed her. They expected her to fail. Her sister ships, awaiting completion in the orbital rings of Mars, brought shame to the planet by their very presence, waiting in orbital cradles unmanned by their crews. This would soon change. When the Inquisitor made his report to his fellows, he left out the empty magazines, missing shield capacitors, and skeleton crew. Faulty design, he said. She will never benefit the imperium but as a sacrifice, he said, doomed to join the ranks of vehicles such as the fast battleships and dreadclaws. He was wrong.

The ship relishes the order when it comes through, resents the way the crew have resigned themselves to fate. Engage and destroy. The battleship needs no confirmation, bringing engines to full ahead, macrocannon batteries and torpedo tubes loading kill slugs and seeking torpedoes, point defense guns and micro missile turrets cycling patterns, abandoning all attempts at stealth. It can see the traitor warships notice the engine flares on their corrupted augar arrays, hear their captains voices through their ill-constructed vox channels. They are confident in their ships, hungering for the glory of finishing what they started.

Their ships turn to face the Devastation, and are surprised to see the speed with which she closes the distance. They are so crazed by the coming glory that they barely notice when their vox channels cut out, all communication between the members of their raiding party lost, each now alone in the dark. 

They are unable to hear the Harpy’s cries, although their content is made clear when the flare of its plasma reactor detonating shines for a moment, shielded from their view by the bulk of the Devastation. They are too crazed to notice the slight flare, the influence of Khorne clouding their reason and judgement.

The Devastation’s cogitators run firing solutions for point defense, assigning flight vectors to attack squadrons, identifying the traitor ships by name, deciding which should be the first to fall. It settles on the Daemonkind, its cogitators counting down the time until it is within range. When the ping of the ranging beacons sound, the Devastation pours its hate through the prow torpedo tubes, eight seeking torpedoes calculating optimal attack vectors to cut off the Daemonkind from its last hope for escape. 

The torpedoes scream across the black, closing on their prey faster than any torpedo before, experimental drive systems pulsing with violet light. The first torpedo misses entirely, along with the next four, their close misses shepherding the Daemonkind into the path of the rest. The fifth detonates prematurely, its detonation momentarily causing the Daemonkinds point defense to falter, blinded by the light. The sixth impacts the void shields, the heat from its detonation scorching the heretical colors off the prow plating. The seventh impacts the prow itself, glancing off as the Daemonkind rolls to avoid it. 

The eighth, however, following the projected paths, each torpedo carefully planned to maneuver the traitor into position for a final blow, slams into the starboard macrocannon bays, its detonation ripping through the ships magazines and shattering its spine, twisting the ship into unnatural shapes as its hallways and bulkheads are blasted apart and filled with ravening flame, its viewports blown out into the void.

The Daemonkind dies in a tapestry of fire, its crew incinerated, magazines detonating in a pall of flame and shrapnel, attack craft desperately avoiding debris. The crews of the other traitor ships ---Emperors Doom. Vengeful Intent.--- are wary now, shocked by the merciless obliteration of their comrade. The Devastation basks in the glory of the traitors doom, the fragments of its prey whirling out into the black, its broken frame now a lifeless, smoldering hulk. 

The Vengeful Intent, in alignment with its name, begins to bring herself around, attempting to align the starboard macrocannon batteries. Before she can complete her turn, she and her sister ships are consumed in a wave of attack craft. The point defense arrays of the traitor warships spew flaming lines of tracers into the void, plasma and shells spinning into the formations of attack craft. The pilots of the Devastations squadrons are undaunted, weaving among the tracers and plasma to hunt the Vengeful Intents fighters. The superior guidance and sensor arrays, derived from the Devastations own advancements, ensure that the imperial pilots find their marks. Autocannon bursts and missile salvos find the attack craft of the Vengeful Intent lacking in both armor and skilled pilots, rupturing fuel reserves, disabling life support systems and venting cockpits in their dozens.

The imperial pilots know their purpose and perform it well. The Vengeful Intents point defense grid is slowly worn away, CIWS turrets and missile platforms shattered by plasma missiles and bolter fire. When the last battery falls silent, the pilots pull away and move to other prey as the shadow of the Devastation falls over the prow of the Vengeful Intent. The macrocannon batteries of the Devastation take advantage of downed shields and an absent PDG to unleash their volley at extreme close range, tearing into the hull of the Vengeful Intent with mechanical efficiency. The Vengeful Intent joins the Daemonkind in destruction, its plasma reactor outshining the sun, burning the traitorous crew from its corridors and scorching the heretical colors off of the plating. The Vengeful Intent is ripped apart by her reactors detonation, her frame twisting into unnatural shapes. The Voice of Devastation closes on the Intent’s wreckage, her PDG picking off the few life pods that managed to escape without mercy. 

The Emperors Doom and Charon are afraid now. They know that they are prey and the Devastation has their scent. The Charon turns tail, slowly accelerating away from the slaughter. The Devastation charges her lance batteries, a blinding light building in the plasma reaction chambers as it prepares to mix with the catalyst. A brief pause, and the Devastation seems to fire liquid tendrils of light, arcing into the black. The Emperors Doom comes about for a broadside, but is given pause by the lance salvos pounding away at her shields and causing the space around her to crackle with blue-white fire.

The Emperors Doom is fearful when the Devastation launches something from its torpedo bays. It turns to relief when the metallic clangs of impact are not followed by explosions, but turns to fear just as quickly when screams and gunfire begin to echo down her corridors. It would seem that Adeptus Astartes Terminators have joined the fray. The halls of the Emperors Doom echo with the crunching impacts of thunder hammers and the shredding roar of assault cannons. Lightning claws and power swords rip through the crew in moments, flamers purging their taint from the ship. The hulking forms of the terminators are unyielding and unstoppable. The ship is taken in mere minutes, hangar bay doors opened and shield lowered to be towed in for scrap after the Astartes are extracted. 

The Devastation moves past the hulk, zeroing in on the fleeing Charon. It’s captain yells to the crew, ordering lance batteries bought about. The Devastation is hateful, pushing its engines to full burn. It’s captain pauses, bridge crew surprised at its fury, quickly handing a specific order down through the command chain.

The Devastation is satisfied when the Charon connects with the prow plating, the screeching jolt of collision echoing through their frames. The Charon is weaker. It’s spine bends and cracks beneath the Devastations prow, it’s engines fluttering. The Charon is destroyed, riven into pieces by the weight of the Devastation. The Devastations transmission towers emit a screech of data and nonsense, a call to its imperial comrades, making it known that the Devastation is hunting, taking her vengeance against the traitorous scum among the stars. The Devastation slips into the dark, heading back to Mars to show its masters its shattered prey.


End file.
